The Verge

He reiterates that employees can work fully remote if they want. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter will be fully re-opening its offices and bringing back business travel starting on March 15th, according to a post written by CEO Parag Agrawal. In his note (see the full text below), Agrawal reiterates the policy put into place by former Twitter lead Jack Dorsey, saying that employees will be allowed to work remotely full-time if that’s what they’re comfortable with.While Agrawal says that he wants Twitter employees to work wherever they “feel most productive and creative” and that the company is committed to “truly flexible work,” his statement does lean a lot on the benefits of office work. It mentions how difficult distributed work is while also saying that “office visits, team meetings, and events all bring that culture to... Continue reading…

Lemoore, California July 2021. Westlands Solar Park, near the town of Lemoore in the San Joaquin Valley of California. | Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Clean energy just had a record-setting year in the US, but without a drastic shift in policies, oil and gas will continue to dominate the US energy sector for the next three decades, according to two new energy reports released today.The Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) annual energy outlook forecast that the US, the world’s top producer of oil and gas, will continue to produce record amounts of crude oil and gas through 2050 if it continues down its current path. Petroleum and gas will also continue to be the country’s “most-consumed” sources of energy through the middle of the century unless something changes. “Though renewable sources grow faster, there is still a large established base of fossil fuel use that we simply do... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge A telecoms blackout has reportedly hit Sumy Oblast in northeastern Ukraine, marking one of the most serious communications disruptions of the conflict so far.The blackout was reported by the internet shutdown tracker NetBlocks on March 3rd at 8:23PM local time (1:23PM ET).NetBlocks said that residents had reported massive blasts at a thermal power plant and electrical substation. A power outage tracker monitoring the region also said that it was no longer receiving data for Sumy Oblast.Sumy Oblast is one of 24 administrative regions, known as “oblasts,” that make up Ukraine and has a population of roughly one million people.

Joe Cavaretta/Sun Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images The US government’s New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), also known as the five-star safety rating, is getting a major update. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced Thursday a set of new proposals for the federal program aimed at curbing the surge in pedestrian deaths.For the first time, NHTSA will consider the inclusion of advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS — sorry for all the acronyms!) features, like automatic emergency braking, blind-spot detection, and lane-keep assistance. These ADAS features, which are quickly becoming standard in most vehicles today, could become essential criteria for a five-star safety rating from the government.Traditionally, NHTSA assigns safety ratings to new cars and... Continue reading…

New Twitch policy will ban accounts that spread misinformation | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitch said Thursday it will ban users who repeatedly spread harmful misinformation on its platform. The streaming site said the new rules won’t apply to users based on “individual statements or discussions” on a channel but to users “whose online presence is dedicated to (1) persistently sharing (2) widely disproven and broadly shared (3) harmful misinformation topics,” the new policy states. Twitch considers such users “harmful misinformation superspreaders.”The company chose those three criteria because, when grouped together, they “create the highest risk of harm including inciting real world harm,” according to a blog post outlining the new policy.Twitch stressed in the blog post that the update “will likely not impact you or... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Coming off a fraught month, Peloton is now extending free at-home trials for its Bike, Bike Plus, and Tread from 30 to 100 days.According to Peloton’s website, this is a limited-time offer for new customers who buy a Peloton machine between March 3rd, 2022, 5PM ET and March 22nd, 2022, 2:59AM ET. Essentially, the program allows customers to buy a new Peloton device, try it for a little over three months, and then return the machine for a full refund if it’s not to their liking. Returns will get free pickups, and Peloton says it’ll also cover shipping fees. While the trial starts once the machines are delivered, Peloton says that buyers will get immediate access to the Peloton app once their orders are confirmed.That said, there’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit is now categorically banning its users, globally, from posting links to Russian state-sponsored media outlets, including RT and Sputnik.It’s possibly the most concrete deplatforming of those channels yet — because while Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Twitter, YouTube, and many others have paused their ads or removed content or restricted discoverability or stopped actively promoting content, and both Facebook and YouTube have blocked content in the EU specifically, none of those is the same thing as a blanket site-wide global ban on all links.In a blog post (via Engadget), Reddit says it’s already been rejecting ads “that target Russia or originate from any Russia-based entity, government or private,” notes that the moderators... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images In the latest salvo from hacktivists working in support of Ukraine, an Anonymous-linked group has defaced a website belonging to Russia’s Space Research Institute (IKI) and leaked files that allegedly belong to the Russian space agency Roscosmos.As reported by Vice, hackers appear to have breached one subdomain of the IKI website, although other subdomains remain online. The compromised part of the site relates to the World Space Observatory Ultraviolet project (WSO-UV), a project similar to the Hubble Space Telescope and planned for launch in 2025.A popular Twitter account tied to the loosely organized Anonymous movement shared details Thursday morning and attributed the action to a group known as v0g3lSec.

Image: Netflix Netflix’s foray into trivia continues with its newly announced series Trivia Quest, an interactive experience that will launch April 1st.Much like its other interactive series like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch or Netflix’s similarly trivia-centered Cat Burglar — which launched last month — Trivia Quest is a narrative interactive experience, meaning each “win” will help move the story along. For Trivia Quest, correctly answering the game’s questions will also help free the friends of the protagonist, Willy, who vows to save hostage citizens of Trivia Land captured by a knowledge-hungry villain named Evil Rocky.Trivia Quest is the latest show to join Netflix’s growing slate of interactive titles. It’s the second game, after Cat Burglar, to... Continue reading…

Verizon announced a new Plus Play streaming hub | Verizon Verizon announced Thursday that it’s launching a new platform in partnership with Netflix, Peloton, Disney Plus, and other streamers as a hub for customers to “discover, purchase and manage some of their favorite subscriptions.” Called Plus Play, the platform will launch with a select group of customers and brands at the end of the month, with a wider launch later this year, the company said in a news release.Plus Play will centralize streaming subscription services with no additional cost to Verizon subscribers. Plus Play will let Verizon customers manage subscriptions across devices and provide information about deals on content services, like its discount for access to the Disney Plus / Hulu / ESPN Plus bundle and other promotional... Continue reading…

One of my biggest computer pet peeves is copying and pasting text. Not the actual mechanism of getting words from one document to another, but the way that modern computers insist on trying to be overly helpful and copying not just the text I want, but all the formatting that comes with it, mucking up my emails and my documents.Pure Paste is a neat new menubar app for macOS that aims to fix that: when it’s open, it automatically strips out any formatting on text you copy, allowing you to paste clean, unformatted text every time. There’s also an option to only clear formatting when you ask Pure Paste to (either through clicking on the menubar icon or through a keyboard shortcut).For those worried about security concerns, the developer... Continue reading…

The Wikimedia Foundation has issued a statement supporting Russian Wikipedia volunteers after a censorship demand from internet regulators. On Tuesday, tech and communications regulator Roskomnadzor threatened to block Wikipedia over the Russian-language page covering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, claiming it contained “false messages” about war casualties and the effects of economic sanctions, among other things.“On March 1st 2022 the Wikimedia Foundation received a Russian government demand to remove content related to the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine posted by volunteer contributors to Russian Wikipedia,” reads the statement sent to The Verge via email. “As ever, Wikipedia is an important source of reliable, factual information in... Continue reading…

Image: CD Projekt Red CD Projekt Red, the Poland-based developer of popular games like Cyberpunk 2077 and the operator of the GOG store, is cutting off sales of its products to Russia and Belarus.“In light of the Russian military invasion in our neighboring country of Ukraine, until further notice the CD PROJEKT Group has made the decision to halt all sales of our games to Russia and Belarus,” the company said on Twitter. “Today, we begin working with our partners to suspend digital sales and cease physical stock deliveries of CD PROJEKT Group products, as well as all games distributed on the GOG platform, to the territories of Russia and Belarus.”In a report to investors, the company estimated that “the approximate cumulative share of Russia and Belarus in... Continue reading…

ULA’s Atlas V rocket flies on Russia’s RD-180 engine. | Image: ULA Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos has issued its latest round of threats in response to global sanctions, this time claiming Russia will no longer sell rocket engines to the United States. Most rocket launches in the US should not be affected, but the decision could change how cargo is sent to the International Space Station.The head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, announced the new policy in an interview with the Russia 24 TV channel. “Today we have made a decision to halt the deliveries of rocket engines produced by NPO Energomash to the United States,” Rogozin said in the interview, according to Russia’s state press site Tass. “Let me remind you that these deliveries had been quite intensive somewhere since the mid-1990s.”... Continue reading…

This hot-swappable keyboard ticks a lot of boxes Continue reading…

Image: Bowers & Wilkins Bowers & Wilkins is today announcing its first Dolby Atmos soundbar. The Panorama 3 is the company’s answer to the Sonos Arc and other high-end Atmos speakers — and it’s priced accordingly at $999.Bowers & Wilkins says that with the Panorama 3, there’s “no need for an external subwoofer” or other added components. The soundbar measures 2.5 inches high and contains 13 drivers — including twin built-in subwoofers — that can reach up to 400W of amplification. (Sonos does not disclose the wattage of its Arc speaker.) As this is an Atmos soundbar, there are also up-firing speakers. Bowers & Wilkins says the Panorama 3 was tuned by the same engineering team as the loudspeakers at the iconic Abbey Road Studios. Image: Bowers... Continue reading…

HTC’s slow-motion fall from smartphone grace is reportedly set to continue in 2022, with the company said to be working on a new “metaverse”-focused phone in April as the remnants of the once-flagship smartphone company continues to desperately cling to whatever zeitgeist term it can to stay afloat, according to DigiTimes.The news comes from Charles Huang, HTC’s general manager for the Asia-Pacific region, who reportedly commented at MWC 2022 that the company would be introducing a new high-end smartphone next month with unspecified “metaverse” features. Details are slim, including any specs, markets it’ll be released in, or even what kind of AR or VR features the new device will offer.The news sounds a lot like HTC’s last major... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A small group of US Twitter users will now see crowdsourced notes under tweets flagged as misleading. The user-generated notes are part of a program called Birdwatch, launched in 2021 by Twitter to address misinformation on the platform.Birdwatch allows contributors to write context notes and sources under tweets and rate whether existing notes are helpful. A pilot program with 10,000 contributors has been underway since last year, but only visible on a separate Birdwatch site — now, some Twitter users will see notes with high ratings directly under tweets and be able to rate their usefulness. Image: Twitter “By empowering people to do this together, they can add helpful and informative context for people from... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge For a lot of people, music is an integral part of working out. But not everyone wants to schlep their phone around while hitting the trails or working up a sweat. That’s where smartwatches can come in pretty handy. While nearly every smartwatch lets you control music on your phone, a good number can also play music on-device.Whether it’s an Apple Watch, Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, Garmin, Fitbit or Wear OS watch, you’ve got a lot of options for listening to music. Much of it will depend on which service is supported and what OS your watch runs on. Some will have options for offline playback, either through downloadable playlists or onboard music storage. If your smartwatch has LTE, you may also be able to stream music directly to your... Continue reading…

Russia’s Aeroflot is losing its ticket-booking software provider. | Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images Sabre, one of the largest airline ticket booking companies in the world, is terminating its distribution agreement with Russian air carrier Aeroflot, the company announced Thursday. The move could further restrict Russian air travel, which has already seen its planes banned from most Western countries’ airspace.State-owned Aeroflot is the flag carrier and the largest airline in the Russian Federation. The airline has about 200 aircraft in its fleet and travels to 146 destinations around the world. Being shut out of online booking software could make it difficult for the airline to operate domestically.Sabre said it is taking “immediate steps” to remove Aeroflot from its global distribution system, which is used by travel agencies,... Continue reading…

Photo by Mitchell Clark / The Verge This week, Rivian updated the price estimates for its R1T electric pickup and R1S electric SUV, informing people that they could cost as much as $20,000 more than the original quotes, depending on the package they’d ordered. Fans who put down $1,000 to get in line for trucks years before they were built were outraged by the change, which Rivian attributed to inflationary pressure and supply chain problems.Today, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe wrote customers, admitting that “we wrongly decided to make these changes apply to all future deliveries, including pre-existing configured preorders” and says that instead, Rivian will honor the “original configured price” for all preorders placed prior to March 1st.

CNN Plus has announced its subscription prices | CNN/Warner Media CNN has finally revealed details about pricing for its forthcoming CNN Plus streaming service. Those who subscribe in the first four weeks of CNN Plus launch will pay $2.99 a month, a 50 percent discount off the regular $5.99 per month / $59.99 per year subscription price. Early subscribers will lock in that $2.99 / month price for as long as they keep their subscriptions, the company said in a news release Thursday.The service will reportedly launch later this month, according to the Los Angeles Times — CNN only says that it will launch “later this spring.”CNN announced its streaming service last July and, over the past several months, has announced several shows that will be part of CNN Plus. In addition to daily versions of weekly... Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge For most of my life, there were two kinds of video games: those you played at home and those you played on a handheld. There was a clear distinction. Even when a powerful device came along, like the PlayStation Vita with its “console-quality” graphics, you could still pretty much always tell the difference; games had their own feel based on the platform. Metroid on the GameCube was very different from Metroid on the Game Boy Advance. But that all changed when the Nintendo Switch launched five years ago.I stumbled upon the power of Nintendo’s tablet in a unique way. Back in 2017, I was tasked with reviewing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a gigantic open-world game that upended the classic Zelda formula. I started out playing it... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge There have been rumors of a new, higher-end Mac Mini swirling for a while now. And with Apple’s upcoming March 8th event, we’ll find out one way or another soon. In the meantime, the current M1 Mac Mini with 512GB of storage costs $749.99 at Amazon. The discounted price (totaling about $149 off its original cost) is reflected at checkout. This model comes with 512GB of storage and 8GB of RAM, and it matches its all-time low price that was last seen during Cyber Monday.This M1 Mac Mini has been around since late 2020, but it’s still an excellent, low-cost desktop PC that over-performs its price tag. Its excellent capabilities are only slightly hindered by its limited offering of USB-C ports, of which there are only two. There’s a pair of... Continue reading…

Image: Nintendo The Nintendo Switch turns five years old today — five years without ever addressing the fact some of its biggest games tend to chug and don’t look great on a big screen TV.I’m here to tell you that not only does Nintendo have a solution for that, Valve’s rival Steam Deck proves beyond a doubt that it would work phenomenally.The rumored Switch Pro makes even more sense nowLet’s catch you up real fast. Last March, Bloomberg reported that a new Switch would finally throw power-hungry gamers a bone. It’d come with a new Nvidia chip and embrace Nvidia’s DLSS deep learning temporal upscaling technology for 4K-quality gaming when docked to your big screen TV. While it never materialized (reportedly due to the chip shortage) it got a bunch... Continue reading…

The Galaxy S22 Ultra is one of the first phones to fully support Samsung’s new Expert RAW app. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Samsung introduced its Expert Raw app in beta at the end of 2021; currently, it is only available for the S21 Ultra. The app allows you to control manual exposure settings for all four of the rear cameras, which is nice, but the more interesting thing it allows you to do is shoot multi-frame RAW files. Here’s what you need to know about Expert RAW – what it is, why it’s useful, and how to use it.What is multi-frame RAW?The short answer is that it’s RAW but better. In general, RAW shooting saves more data than a JPEG image file, which is a huge benefit if you prefer to fine-tune things like white balance and exposure photo editing software. JPEGs are smaller and more easily shareable, but those kinds of settings are “baked in” to save... Continue reading…

Level Keypad has a minimalist and compact design and can be installed anywhere within 30 feet of the door. | Image: Level Level announced today it’s releasing the Level Keypad, a smart entry panel that can unlock doors equipped with the company’s smart lock products. The Level Keypad can be installed anywhere within 30 feet of the door it will be used with, can be programmed with multiple access codes, and is completely wireless.Level Keypad connects via Bluetooth to the company’s sleekly designed Level Lock and Level Lock Touch Edition and the completely invisible Level Bolt (formerly Level Lock). Level is known for its discreet product designs, so it was surprising when the company teased the very visible lighted keypad late last year that didn’t really aesthetically match the Level locks it works with. But since the device is wireless, it can be mounted... Continue reading…

Eufy’s new Video Smart Lock could solve two smart home security problems in one. | Image: Eufy Security Anker’s smart home brand Eufy Security today launched its latest product on Kickstarter. The $399 Eufy Security Video Smart Lock is a video doorbell and smart lock in one and is expected to ship to backers in May 2022, with a general release in June. The somewhat unique two-in-one security device notably uses a fingerprint reader to unlock the door and can send alerts when specific people arrive or leave using facial recognition, according to the company.An apparent amalgamation of Eufy’s $260 Eufy Smart Lock Touch & WiFi and $200 Eufy Video Doorbell 2K, the Video Smart Lock provides a slight bargain compared to shelling out for two devices, but there are obvious issues with a dual product here.For starters, most people struggle with... Continue reading…

Gran Turismo 7 is full of gorgeous, true-to-life re-creations of cars, both new and classic. Having an obsessive eye for the details of automobiles has always been a hallmark feature of Polyphony Digital’s storied racing sim since its debut on the original PlayStation. (My colleague Sam Byford has a full review of the game here.)The latest iteration — which launches on March 4th on the PS4 and PS5 — includes an even more deeply satisfying photo mode than before, offering countless ways to make your ride look even more phenomenal. But I can’t stop turning the camera to look at the low-poly people.Sure, you can pause any second of any race replay, walk around your car, angle the camera just right, and adjust numerous other nerdy settings... Continue reading…

Here’s the keyboard/ | Image: Dynabook Dynabook has announced its newest 14-inch flagship, the Portégé X40L-K. The device will start at $1,799.99 and hits shelves in April. I haven’t seen a full breakdown of the configurations that will be offered, but I’m certainly curious how expensive it will go.Dynabook is known for making mind-blowingly light laptops. Its Portégé line regularly includes some of the lightest models in the world. At 2.3 pounds, the X40L-K won’t quite be the lightest 14-inch laptop on the market, but it’ll likely be close. Currently, there are a handful of 14-inchers that weigh less than 2.2 pounds — off the top of my head, the list includes the Asus ExpertBook B9 and the LG Gram 14 — but that’s such a smidge of a difference I doubt it will impact anyone’s... Continue reading…

Dell is pushing the limits of the XPS 15’s slim chassis Continue reading…

At ETHDenver, developers want a utopian future Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Spotify has closed its office in Russia and removed content from Kremlin-backed outlets RT and Sputnik, Variety reports. In addition, it’s also restricting the discoverability of content from other outlets affiliated with the Russian government. Reuters reports that RT and Sputnik’s content has been removed in several markets including the United States and European Union, but not in Russia itself. In total, Spotify says it’s reviewed thousands of pieces of content since the start of the war.Closing Spotify’s Russian office means that the company is no longer in compliance with a Russian law from July 2021 which obliges foreign social media companies with over 500,000 daily users to have a local office in the country. Failing to comply... Continue reading…

Electric boat startup Arc revealed new images and a video of the pre-production version of the Arc One, a 24-foot-long vessel with a massive battery pack and an elegant design. The company has raised $30 million from a group of prominent investors that include Will Smith, Kevin Durant, and Sean “Diddy” Combs.The company has already tested an early prototype, and the reveal of its pre-production version is meant to send the signal that the company is getting closer to customer deliveries, which are on schedule for this summer.The specs of the Arc One have changed slightly since the company first came out of stealth last year. The boat will still have a top speed of around 40 miles per hour and can last about four hours under power... Continue reading…

There are conflicting reports about whether Samsung’s S22 series devices are affected. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Some of Samsung’s smartphones include software that appears to be artificially limiting, or throttling, the performance of thousands of popular apps, Android Authority reports. Reports about the behavior have been gathering steam on Twitter, as well as Samsung’s Korean community forums.At the core of the issue is Samsung software called Game Optimizing Service (GOS), which is reportedly throttling the performance of 10,000 apps. This list includes popular apps like Instagram, Netflix, TikTok, and even Samsung’s own apps like Secure Folder and Samsung Pay. Crucially, however, it doesn’t appear to include benchmarking apps like 3DMark and GeekBench, which means they might not give an accurate picture of the performance of a phone. So a... Continue reading…

Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images Elon Musk has invited the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union to hold a vote to unionize at Tesla’s Fremont factory in California.Musk tweeted the challenge after President Joe Biden, speaking in his State of the Union Address, mentioned rival automakers Ford and General Motors — both of which have a strong union presence, a key component of Biden’s political base — but not Tesla.Gene Simmons, bassist and singer from iconic rock band Kiss, noted on Twitter that the snub from pro-union Biden may have been “because Tesla is non-union and moved to Texas, a ‘right to work’ state.”Musk apparently agrees, and responded: “I’d like hereby to invite UAW to hold a union vote at their convenience. Tesla will do nothing to stop them.” Musk’s... Continue reading…

Two other Amazon warehouses are involved in union elections. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon employees at the Staten Island LDJ5 warehouse have reportedly gotten the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) permission to continue with unionization efforts, according to the Amazon Labor Union, after the workers filed a petition to unionize in February. According to a screenshot posted by Vice reporter Lauren Kaori Gurley, Amazon has acknowledged the decision in a message sent to employees through its A to Z app.The Amazon Labor Union, or ALU, has been working to unionize the facility for a while — in October it filed a petition to unionize Amazon’s facilities on Staten Island, but later refiled that petition to focus on a single warehouse, JFK8. Workers at JFK8 have since gotten approval to hold an election starting on... Continue reading…

Several state attorneys generals are looking at TikTok’s methods of keeping kids on the platform. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A coalition of state attorneys general from California, Florida, Kentucky, and more is investigating TikTok for its potential effect on young people’s mental and physical health (via CNBC). The group of AGs is looking to see if the way TikTok designs, operates, and markets its platform has a negative effect on children, teens, and young adults’ health, according to a press release from Attorney General Maura Healey of Massachusetts.TikTok’s algorithm determines what content users see, and has proven remarkably effective at keeping users engaged on the app. While the company has offered some insight into how it works, it’s hard to get a grasp on exact details outside of leaks and educated guesswork. The attorneys general may be looking... Continue reading…

Image: Stüssy Beats is releasing a limited-edition model of its discontinued Beats Pill Plus in collaboration with fashion brand Stüssy. The release comes not long after Apple discontinued the Beats Pill Plus in January.Apple released the original Beats Pill Plus speaker, which measured a bit larger than the first Beats Pill, in 2015. It was the first speaker Apple released following its 2014 acquisition of Beats for $3 billion. This new version of the Pill Plus will only be available for a limited time. Image: Stüssy Image: Stüssy The new Pill Plus will keep the original design and come in a sleek black with a white skull and crossbones design on the front of the speaker. One side of the speaker reads “the... Continue reading…

The Wordle clones are back on the App Store, just a few weeks after Apple wiped out nearly all the copycat games in January.A quick glance at the top free apps on the App Store reveals at least two prominently placed Wordle-alikes, while diving into Apple’s more specific word games category (or simply searching “Wordle”) surfaces plenty of other copycats, many of which appear to have been part of Apple’s first wave of takedowns a few months ago.None of the new games are actively passing themselves off as Wordle — at least, not in name. Instead, the clones have creatively rebranded to “Wordus,” “Word Guess,” “Wordl,” and other thinly veiled references to the original game. But all of them offer some variant on Wordle’s gameplay, down... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge It looks like Twitter’s building a tab dedicated to podcasts, as shown in a screenshot posted by reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong. The image shows a microphone icon in the Twitter app’s bottom menu bar, which appears to lead to a page titled “Podcasts.”

Zirconium is a key part of the IE 600 earbuds. | Image: Sennheiser Sennheiser’s new earbuds are 3D printed with the same material used in the drill bits for the Mars rover. The IE 600 earbuds have a shell that’s composed of ZR01 amorphous zirconium, lending it a unique aesthetic and remarkable durability.What the hell is zirconium anyway? Without going into too much detail, zirconium is a shapeable metal that's highly resistant to corrosion. This is why zirconium is frequently used for a variety of industrial and medical applications and is commonly used in steel alloys. So why is Sennheiser using zirconium in its headphones?One might assume that using this uncommon material would somehow provide you with otherworldly sound quality, but that’s not what Sennheiser seems to be pitching here. Rather,... Continue reading…

Photo by Mitchell Clark / The Verge Rivian increased the estimated prices of its R1T electric pickup and R1S electric SUV this week by up to 20 percent, as reported by TechCrunch. The company is applying the new estimates to new orders and changing them for reservation holders who don’t yet have a vehicle entering production.This is the first significant change in pricing Rivian has revealed since orders opened, and while customer preorders all stated “prices are subject to change as they get closer to production,” it seems like no one was ready for a change this big. Prospective EV buyers are used to fluctuations in the pricing of cars from Tesla, but in that case, prices are usually locked in from the time they put in their orders.Many customers shared they have... Continue reading…

Photo by Erin Chang/ISI Photos/Getty Images HBO Max is adding more sports coverage to its programming slate. Turner Sports, an arm of WarnerMedia, has reached a deal with the US Soccer Federation to air matches exclusively on TNT, TBS, and HBO Max.As part of the eight-year agreement that will begin in 2023, HBO Max will stream more than 20 matches for the men’s and women’s national teams each year, WarnerMedia announced Tuesday. WarnerMedia-owned linear channels TNT and TBS will simultaneously air roughly half of those, while the other half will stream exclusively on HBO Max.Turner Sports and its division Bleacher Report will have exclusive rights to live coverage of the matches as part of the agreement. Additionally, the deal positions Turner Sports as the exclusive... Continue reading…

Opening day at the Amazon 4-Star brick and mortar store located in Soho in New York City. The cashless enterprise offers a variety of items that have been rated 4-stars or higher. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Amazon is closing most of its physical stores, the company announced today, with all 68 of its Amazon Books, Amazon 4-Star, and Amazon Pop Up locations across the US and the UK set to close while the company refocuses on its grocery and fashion stores, Reuters reports.Amazon Books was one of the primarily online storefront’s first physical retail experiences when the first location opened in Seattle in 2015. Amazon has since expanded to 24 bookstores across the US, all of which are now slated to be closed down.Amazon is ending most of its retail experiments to focus on grocery storesThe company would go on to expand its retail efforts with Amazon 4-Star in 2018, with a more generally focused store that sold products with a four-star... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge One promised benefit of the Apple Watch is early detection of a heart condition called atrial fibrillation, a type of irregular heart rhythm. But most people who wear the watch are in a demographic that wouldn’t actually be able to do much with that information, according to a new study — most doctors wouldn’t prescribe them the medication usually given for that condition, which is usually detected in older people.Getting an alert about a heart rhythm, then, doesn’t help the typical Apple Watch user’s overall health, says study author Josh Pevnick, co-director in the division of informatics at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. “It can cause anxiety for people who it identifies, and if there’s no treatment, then you’re maybe... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Ford’s decision to divide its business into two separate entities — one focused on electric vehicles and the other on gas-powered ones — may complicate the automaker’s efforts to recruit top-tier talent and could risk upsetting dealers already chafing under the shift to electrification, auto analysts and experts said Wednesday.Ford also isn’t going so far as to spin off its EV divisions entirely as a separate business, as some major Wall Street banks advised. The automaker’s share price could suffer as a result. By keeping both divisions within the same company, Ford is entwining their fates. Ford Model E won’t succeed without the profits and efficiencies created under Ford Blue.On Wednesday, Ford announced the creation of two... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Over the past year or so, Google has been buying up several audio hardware startups, according to a recent report from Protocol. The fact that Google’s estimated to have spent tens of millions on startups and patent portfolios of companies working on audio hardware, 3D audio, noise cancellation, and Bluetooth tech could hint that it’s planning on expanding its lineup of audio products. In many cases, it’s reportedly brought on employees from the companies as well.Google is no stranger to the world of audio products. It’s sold multiple models and generations of wireless earbuds, and it brands its Nest Audio smart speaker as being “all about sound.” But at the moment, it doesn’t have the same range of offerings as competitors like Apple... Continue reading…

Netflix Though Netflix was likely on higher alert than usual after the set of its series The Crown was recently robbed to the tune of $200,000 in antiques and props, Lupin, another one of the streaming platform’s shows, was similarly — albeit more ironically — hit by thieves the very next day.Variety reports that production on the third season of Netflix’s Lupin, the series inspired by author Maurice Leblanc’s fictional master thief Arsène Lupin, has resumed after halting last week following an on-set robbery in the city of Nanterre where the series has been shooting. Though no members of the cast or crew were hurt when some 20 or so individuals reportedly hurled fireworks onto the set, the thieves were able to make off with about $333,000... Continue reading…